One of the huge challenges of reaching a certain age lies in effectively mapping out your so-called Golden Years. You expect that you're going to have to retire, eventually. This is affected by so many and very diverse factors. For example, how much money do you have already, in savings, home equity, stocks and bonds, registered retirement savings plans, etcetera. Then, one must imagine what their expected expenses are going to be for housing, food, clothing, transportation, entertainment, travel, and pharmaceuticals. What quality of health can you expect for yourself and for how many years. You might be trundling around with a walker by the time you are seventy. Or you will be running marathons into your nineties.
Old age is the epoch of decline. We lose our physical stamina, often our health, our vision and hearing, our minds, our loved ones, families, friends and social networks, and far too often our sense of purpose and significance in our world and in the universe. Dementia is a huge risk. We do what we can to prepare, to plan for the almost inevitable, but in the end we have to settle for what's available, be it a tiny room in seniors' complex or a bedroom shared with disagreeable strangers in a government-run facility. There life will be particularly bleak, our only friends being the paid staff and volunteers who do what they can to alleviate our misery.
For the low-income single senior this scenario can be particularly nightmarish. I have to consider all these factors while I prepare. I also try to stoke myself with hope that it doesn't have to all end up this way. Where I feel that I have an advantage over many fellow-geezers blessed with family networks and nice jobs and incomes is that I am already prepared emotionally and psychologically for the same losses that will likely end up hobbling many of the others. I already know what it is like to be alone and unsupported and this has given me a lot of strength that my better-off peers could only dream of for themselves. I also expect to meet with at least some qualified success in staving off dementia. For one thing, I am fluent in a second language and I am constantly working at further honing my Spanish skills and dexterity. I am also interested in life-long learning and I tend to watch documentaries in Spanish and study online university courses presented some in English, some in Spanish. I am also an artist and I continually work at my craft to refine and improve my technique, partly with the idea of returning to aggressively promoting my paintings and drawings once I am retired. I also read and write prodigiously while maintaining and further developing a network of friends of all ages and classes of people. I travel, too, not because I can afford to, because I can't really. Instead, I budget carefully for an annual trip to somewhere in Latin America, which also requires having to make some substantial sacrifices and tradeoffs. This makes my lifestyle at home particularly modest and, perhaps to others, austere, but I am not uncomfortable, I don't feel deprived of anything, and the rich blessing of seeing new places and visiting old friends, and making new friends, in another language can only open and strengthen my neural pathways.
Good self-care also makes a huge difference. Diet, for one thing. I am vegetarian and I do eat tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables. I do need to reduce the sugar somewhat, even though I am not at risk of diabetes, but you never know, eh? I get daily exercise, practicing my minimum five miles of walking every day, often going up to nearly ten. I also do daily stomach crunches and stretching exercises while cleaning my apartment every day. I maintain a strong and disciplined spiritual life, augmented by my ongoing experience of God's daily and intimate presence in my life. This also equips me for keeping a positive, peaceful and grateful attitude. Getting out in nature and quiet walking routes full of trees and gardens every day also helps. So does getting adequate sleep.
My work does interfere with my sleep, sometimes, and lately it is quite rare for me to sleep the night through throughout the work week, though my sleep tends to be good on my days off. I have dopted a good coping strategy. If I can't get back to sleep and it's 3 am I simply get up, get started, have my shower, clean my place and have some breakfast. I don't take caffeine at this time, and following my shower I put my pyjamas back on because I will be going back to bed. I will still have another three hours or so for another sleep. It isn't always the best quality and often I feel a bit jet-lagged but it works for now and I don't think this will badly impact my ageing process.
I have been thinking of continuing to work part time, once I hit sixty-five, though my calculated retirement income is still going to be a bit more than what I am earning at work (they do a bit of top up for low income earners. If you're on a disability pension you get nothing. Our government still likes to punish people for not working, unfortunately). So now, I'm singing a slightly different tune. If things change positively in upper management and they are paying us better, have improved our working conditions and start treating us with a little respect, then I probably will stay on. Otherwise, it's bye-bye for you! And I will likely look into volunteer opportunities, or seek other, part time employment, or maybe I'll meet with renewed success marketing my art.
This all depends, of course, on if I'm able to keep my health, my marbles and my ducks in a row, at least for a while after my sixties. I would bet the farm on that!
Happy New Year, everyone!
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